Live Jaunt

A chance encounter with a gang from Pittsburgh a few weeks ago, many of whom had stickers and shirts with the word “Jaunt” boldly stated, left me curious. A chat with Mike Potoczny about what Jaunt was all about filled in the blanks. We asked Mike to dive into a little more detail to share with Leastmost readers.

A clothing brand is something Josh Pekich and I have wanted do for a while. I just finished up college and we decided to go for it. We don’t want to be another cookie cutter clothing brand. Jaunt represents anyone that has a passion for something and uses it to travel around and have a good time. We have lived through BMX for many years and that is where we are starting out but our end goal is to be more than a BMX brand and support the many different cultures (surfing, MTB, snowboarding, art, music, etc) that all have the same goal, to travel around and have one hell of a time doing it. For us BMX has been a journey full of awesome trips, friends, culture, and riding. It’s all about having fun and adventures with your buddies and that’s what we hope to represent. Our clothes are going to be simple, clean and travel ready.

Who is on the team?

We’re working on adding a few more dudes to the team. But who we have now is pretty damn solid. Currently our team is made up of Tom Dillon, Dougie Richie, Evan Voss, Kyle McRory, and Corey Zell.

Doug Richie paying homage to Groundchuck in Syracuse, New York.

After a year hiatus you brought back the trail jam. Can we expect another one next season?

For sure, last year went better than we could have imagined. It’s awesome to see the people who come out to ride. It’s really given Mark and I rejuvenation with our yard. My brother and I are getting older and at the brink of moving from our country trail paradise, but we don’t want to do that without going out with a bang. We still have a little bit of unfinished business with the trails and couple things we still want to build. We want to have two to three more years of good jams and sessions before we part from our trails. It’s a crazy feeling thinking about leaving behind trails that have been in my yard for 17 years. But we’re going to try to give ‘em a good 20 years of roasting. So, look out for a good Welcome Jam this summer and come shred the yard with us.

Tom Dillon with a crazy transfer to the high road.

You are also working on an indoor park in Pittsburgh called The Wheel Mill, how has that been going?

It’s been going incredible. We pretty much just hit full stride in the last couple weeks. A lot of rooms are coming together. This place is massive. It pretty much spans a city block. It’s 80,000 square feet and has about 10 rooms. It’s pretty daunting when you think about it. But we’ve been working pretty fast lately. We have a mini, an MTB room, and a foam/resi room done and we’re finishing up another skatepark room and MTB room in the next week or two and we’ll be onto a box jump room. We’re really excited about the box jump room. That’s why Mark and I mainly got pulled into this project. We got to design the room and I can’t wait to see it come together. We’re hoping to make it one of the most trail-influenced rhythms yet. It’s awesome to be able to put what we’ve always thought should be in a park in the design. I think the scene is really going to like it. The Pittsburgh region hasn’t had a good indoor skatepark in years. It’s going to be awesome to see the scene come together with a bike park.

Check out the Jaunt website to link up with them on a variety of social media sites for the latest on Mike’s new project.